What was the industrial safety in the nineteenth century?

Answer 1

There was very little formal industrial safety in the nineteenth century. Some companies, such as DuPont, developed their own safety requirements, but many simply hired a new worked if one was injured.

The German Empire was the leader in the late 19th century in developing the beginnings of formal industrial safety requirements, and established the first Workers' Compensations system.

The nineteenth century saw the beginning of the industrial revolution in Europe and America. With this appeared innumerable work related injuries. The matter of compensation was determined by what was later known as the unholy trinity of defenses. First of these was CONTRIBUTORY NEGLEGENCE wherein the injured worker was held responsible for his injury because it resulted from his unsafe act. The second was the FELLOW-SERVANT RULE. The employer was not held responsible if the injury sustained was due to some unsafe act by a fellow employee. The third was the ASSUMPTION OF RISK. It was deemed that the worker knew the hazard associated with the work he was performing and knowing fully well he had opted to take up the job and assume the risk that came with it. Legal recourse then was very cumbersome and expensive. Most workers were unabe to afford the legal costs for a very uncertain outcome.

Otto Von Bismarck, Chancellor of undivided Germany was the iniciator of Workmen's Compensation in 1871, through the Employers' Liability Law in Germany. This provided some social protection in certain workplaces, namely mines, quarries, railroads, etc. Bismark championed the first modern system of workers' compensation through Workers' Accident Insurance in 1884. Later, Public Pension Insurance was established, where a worker incapacitated due to work related illness was given a stipend. There was also a system of Public Aid providing a safety net for those who were never able to work due to disability.

Britain saw the beginninng of workers insurance in the form of the Workers' Compensation Act proposed in the British parliament in 1893 and passed in 1897.

In America, the first comprehensive workers' compensation law was passed in Wisconsin in 1911. Nine other states passed regulations that year, followed by thirty-six others before the decade was out. The final state to pass workers' compensation legislation was Mississippi, in 1948.